Synopsis

At the age of 21, Tim Lake discovers he can travel in time… The night after another unsatisfactory New Year party, Tim’s father tells his son that the men in his family have always had the ability to travel through time. Tim can’t change history, but he can change what happens and has happened in his own life—so he decides to make his world a better place...by getting a girlfriend. Sadly, that turns out not to be as easy as you might think. Moving from the Cornwall coast to London to train as a lawyer, Tim finally meets the beautiful but insecure Mary. They fall in love, then an unfortunate time-travel incident means he’s never met her at all. So they meet for the first time again—and again—but finally, after a lot of cunning time-traveling, he wins her heart. Tim then uses his power to create the perfect romantic proposal, to save his wedding from the worst best-man speeches, to save his best friend from professional disaster and to get his pregnant wife to the hospital in time for the birth of their daughter, despite a nasty traffic jam outside Abbey Road. But as his unusual life progresses, Tim finds out that his unique gift can’t save him from the sorrows and ups and downs that affect all families, everywhere. There are great limits to what time travel can achieve, and it can be dangerous too. About Time is a comedy about love and time travel, which discovers that, in the end, making the most of life may not need time travel at all

It's another slow week on the home market. There are five or so first run releases, but the biggest box office was earned by Free Birds, which earned $55 million. Fortunately, while there are no box office hits, there are some high quality releases, led by Dallas Buyers Club. Unfortunately, the DVD and Blu-ray Combo Pack has so few extras that I'm convinced a special edition is on its way, so it isn't a Pick of the Week contender. So what are the Pick of the Week contenders this week? First there's Cutie and the Boxer on DVD or Blu-ray. Second there's ... Cutie and the Boxer is the Pick of the Week.
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The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug was the biggest draw on the international chart last weekend adding $97.4 million on 16,840 screens in 56 markets for totals of $278.4 million internationally and $406.0 million worldwide after just two weeks of release. This includes a first place debut in Russia where it made $16.36 million on 2,125 screens over the weekend for a total opening of $19.11 million. This is more or less the same as the first film opened with. (An Unexpected Journey didn't open on Wednesday, but made $17.89 million on 2,128 screens during its three-day opening weekend.)
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The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug opened in first place on the international chart with $135.4 million on 16,405 screens in 49 markets. This includes a trio of markets where it topped $10 million. Germany led the way with $19.00 million on 874 screens, compared to $15.01 million earned by the previous film. The U.K. contributed $15.20 million on 580 screens, but that wasn't as strong as the $18.77 million earned by the first installment. France was third with $13.38 million on 909 screens, up from $11.12 million. It also placed first in a number of other major markets with Spain bringing in $7.05 million on 859 screens. It earned $6.24 million on 809 screens over the weekend for a total opening of $7.25 million. Mexico was up next with $5.07 million on 2,615 screens over the weekend for a total opening of $5.96 million. Italy and Brazil earned nearly identical results with $4.97 million on 720 screens and $4.86 million on 1,039 respectively.
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As expected, Thor: The Dark World led the way on the weekend box office chart. However, The Best Man Holiday was surprisingly strong and helped soften the blow at the overall box office. Even so, the box office was down 26% from the last weekend at $125 million. A 26% drop-off is bad, but the year-over-year comparison was even worse. So much worse. Compared to this weekend last year when The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 debut, the box office was down almost exactly 50%. And with that, 2013 is no longer ahead of 2012's pace. It was bound to happen with the weak box office numbers recently. Granted, 2013 is only behind by 0.4% at $9.02 billion to $9.06 and one really good weekend could reverse that situation. In fact, the opening of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire this coming weekend could reverse that situation, but 2013 will be neck-and-neck with 2012 from here on out, instead of the solid leads it held for much of the year.
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Thor: The Dark World matched expectations nearly perfectly and dominated the box office over the weekend. In fact, it earned more than the rest of the box office pulled in combined. This helped the overall box office rise 32% from last weekend reaching $167 million. Unfortunately, Thor couldn't match Skyfall's opening weekend and the total box office was 3% lower than the same weekend last year. 2013 is still ahead of 2012, but by 0.9% at $8.85 million to $8.77 million. Since there is only one new release next weekend, and it isn't a prime release, we will likely see another year-over-year loss. Fortunately, 2013 should still stay ahead of 2012 and Catching Fire should end 2013's losing streak in a big way.
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Thor: The Dark World will easily win the race for the top of the box office this weekend. It really has no competition for top spot, and only token competition as far as new releases are concerned. About Time is the only other new wide release, and quite frankly, I should add quotes around both "new" and "wide", as it opened in limited release last weekend, will expand to 1,400 theaters this weekend and it likely won't reach the top five. It will be interesting to see if Ender's Game will hold up next to the competition from Thor, but that seems unlikely. Thor: The Dark World could do well when compared to last year's number one film, Skyfall, but 2013 just doesn't have the depth to thrive, so 2013 will lose again in the year-over-year comparison.
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Dallas Buyers Club took top spot on the per theater chart with an average of $28,985 in nine theaters. Add in its reviews and this is a great start. 12 Years a Slave was finally pushed out of top spot, but it still has a very strong showing with an average of $11,688 in more than 400 theaters.
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As expected, Ender's Game will comfortably win this weekend's box office race with an opening in the vicinity of $28 million. That's a healthy figure, but barely gets it into the top 100 openings in November and it'll be footnote by the time Thor and The Hunger Games have rolled out in a few week's time. It seems well short of what would be needed for a sequel to be greenlit. Free Birds will also not enjoy a theatrical sequel (although direct-to-video spin-offs seem likely) as it will open with around $16 million, but CBS Films is very happy with the $16 million debut of Last Vegas, which will benefit from an older demographic in the weeks to come.
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After last week's short list, there are nearly 20 films on this week's list. Because of this, each entry will be shorter than usual. There are a few films on this week's list that seem destined for mainstream success, including Dallas Buyers Club, which could net Matthew McConaughey some Awards Season hardware.
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October ended on a winning note, but it was the only time the entire month that 2013 topped 2012 in the year-over-year comparison. This is quite shocking, as Gravity crushed expectations with more than $200 million and counting. Even with that surprise monster hit, the month still couldn't keep pace with last year. Compared to October, November looks a lot better with three films that could be monster hits: Frozen, Thor: The Dark World, and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. On the other hand, those are the only three movies with a 50/50 chance or better to top $100 million compared, while there were seven films that reached that milestone last November. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire should make more than last year's number one film, Skyfall, but the depth last year could prove too much to deal with. 2013 might dip below last year's pace sometime during the month, but hopefully it won't stay there too long.
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Weekly US Blu-ray Sales

Our DVD and Blu-ray sales estimates are based on weekly retail surveys, which we use to build a weekly market share estimate for each title we are tracking. The market share is converted into a weekly sales estimate based on industry reports on the overall size of the market, including reports published in Home Media Magazine.

For example, if our weekly retail survey estimates that a particular title sold 1% of all units that week, and the industry reports sales of 1,500,000 units in total, we will estimate 15,000 units were sold of that title. The consumer spending estimate is based on the average sales price for the title in the retailers we survey.

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